Potholes & Detours
by Webberfish
Summary: She moves out of town to get away from him. Too bad for Jinx that Kid Flash has all the time in the world to track her down. Unfortunately for her when he finds her, he's always up for conversation. -Rated T for Language & sexual suggestion - Jinx/Kid Flash pairing


Things weren't the same.

"I told you to leave me alone. Wind speed messing with your ears or something?"

"Couldn't let a pretty lady walk home by herself."

Jinx snorted, her hands sliding into the pocket of her beat up jeans. She left her shift at the diner not thirty minutes before, trudging down the quiet streets of downtown Cloister. Midnight or not anyone who dared approach her would be blown a new throat hole.

"I thought your home base was Keystone. You should you know, stay there."

Kid Flash only gave her one of his grins, falling in step beside her. It had been over a year since the Brotherhood of Evil had been defeated by the various sets of Titans and Allies. Jinx still hadn't figured out completely why she had ended up as one of them, blaming it entirely on the yellow and red speedster beside her.

She'd been trying for a year not to think about it.

"Life's been a bit quiet." He added easily. She only rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, freezing all your enemies would do that to you."

Jinx hadn't seen any of the H.I.V.E 5 since that day. As far as she knew they were all still frozen. On another one of his visits Kid Flash explained that it was taking a mess of time and red tape to figure out which villains to unfreeze first, what secure prisons they'd be sent to etc. So far only a tenth had been revived and locked away, she didn't know when it was going to be her old teams turn. She had barely escaped a similar punishment.

Robin had wanted to drag her to tribunal in chains and throttle her to pieces, but KF had stood by her and defended her. Apparently, there was something 'good in her' and it was worth developing or some such bullshit. She'd taken her probation with a heavy hand and vanished from Jump City, ditching her old crime lifestyle.

She just didn't have the heart anymore.

"You're a lot more fun then old robbers anyway."

"I'm sure." murmured Jinx kicking an empty soda can on the sidewalk. There was a heavy smell of trash in the air, her job didn't exactly pay well and she lived in a crap neighborhood.

"Ready to come with me yet or what? Aren't you tired of men grabbing your ass."

What Kid Flash hadn't expected was the unwillingness to join the league of heroes either. She'd dropped out of both, created a fake alias and rented a crappy apartment in Cloister. Picking up a job waiting tables at a dive jazz club. Her pink hair and 'cat-eye contacts' fit in with the hipster patrons and so far being 'Cat' was working out mostly okay.

"More attention then I'd get from you."

Kid Flash stumbled over his own boots in surprise at the catty comment, and chuckling she sent out a wave of pink energy widening the pothole in front of his feet. He fell into it. Jinx laughed. Loudly.

"Those people are influencing you!" he cried, a light blush still on his exposed cheeks. He'd redesigned his old mask, reshaping the cutouts around his eyes to round circles and pulling the spandex down so it rested lower across the bridge of his nose. He had goggles against his bright red hair, the two lightning bolts still sticking out out from where his ears should be. He was seventeen now or so, she could see it in the way the angles of his face were changing.

"I'm a villain remember."

"Bullshit. You haven't done anything villainy in ages. You even pay your rent on time."

"Shut it."

Someone the fact that he spied on her didn't really upset her as much as it should have. While her life was a lot less exciting then it use to be, without the dangers of being beaten or arrested, it came with a price of losing anyone she use to associate with. She's wasn't afraid to admit she was a bit lonely, but never to Kid Flash himself. Fuck that.

"I've been thinking about it lately. I've decided to start robbing banks again, maybe a cache of jewels sometime. Move up town and all that."

He rolled his eyes, turning the familiar corner to her block a step ahead of her. Fucker even knew where she lived.

"The only place you should be going is to Keystone with me."

"I don't want to save humans. It's a job for suckers."

"Are you calling me a sucker?" he chimed in, his blue eyes focusing solely on her like tracker beams. She'd never seen anyone else with eyes like his and they still made her uncomfortable. It was like he was seeing something else, something even she couldn't.

"Cock sucker maybe," elbowing him with a bony thrust and matching it with another smirk. "Who's it going to be? Robin? Speedy? I hear you're all pretty close."

"Jinx!"

"What else is there to think, you all pair up in a male dominated teams." She liked the way she could make the usual smooth speedster blush and fumble over himself in embarrassment.

"So did you!"

Jinx stopped in her tracks, the unexpected hurt coming from somewhere she thought long dead. They were unbelievably stupid, and fucking loud but once she did have a team. She was the leader, and despite her childish plans of doing something worthy of the Brotherhood's notice they'd depended on her.

"Fuck, Jinx, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

Jinx didn't pretend to be a good person, she'd been a thief, a violence hound almost all her life. Her very power and essence of being was drawn on bad luck and the hurt of her others. It hadn't been personal, that's what she tried to tell herself, when she stood in a room full of villains and heroes and she'd been blasting people she had months prior been standing next to.

Villains betrayed. Villains hurt whoever they felt like. What did it matter if they were all frozen someplace-she didn't care.

"Leave me alone, Kid Flash."

She wasn't bad enough to be a villain. She wasn't good enough to be a hero. She was only bad luck, mostly to herself.

"Jinx-"

"Don't you get it!" she snapped at him, turning on her heel and hounding on him. He was a lot taller then her without her platform boots but she didn't care. Her cat eyes glowed pink, absorbing the hurt of her iris's. "Anyone I come in contact with I end up hurting! I'm bad luck! A witch! So go back to Keystone and leave me alone!"

"I don't want-"

"What does it matter what you want!" she hissed, the pink light illuminating her thin face. He reached for her with his gloved hands but she fell back with her gymnastic grace. "No one ever asked me what I wanted when I was born like this, no one ever-"

"I asked you."

Kid Flash's face was as serious as she'd ever seen it, the joke and heart going out, the frustration and anger seeping in. He used his speed against her and grabbed her shoulders, pinning her with his strong muscles and gloved hands. He easily out weighed her seventy pounds and even without using his powers he swung her weight and trapped her against the brick wall near them.

"I asked you! I asked you again and again, over and over to stop and think about what you were doing and have you've ever listened to it?"

Jinx said nothing, frozen in shock, feeling the power of his fingertips brushing her grey skin. Her eyes lost their pink glow.

"I asked you to come with me. I don't care if you fight crime or not, but I still think you're better then all this. Stop punishing yourself, stop being a coward!"

"A coward? I'm not a stupid coward-" She regained her senses and pushed her weight against him, but he didn't budge.

"Yes, you are! You think you're made to live as a civilian? I've come here for a year watching you wait tables, getting smaller and smaller everyday." He brushed back her the curtain of pink hair that now brushed against her shoulders and tucked it behind her ear. "You're bigger, Jinx. That's what I saw from the first day in that museum."

"Shut up. shut up."

She didn't want to see his eyes, blue and bright and searching for her. She didn't want to hear his voice or his words. Jinx was bad luck. It was every part of her, it was her name for fucks sake...his words didn't mean anything.

"Trying to steal a good luck charm to cancel out whatever you think is wrong with you. Trying to get in with the Brotherhood to finally get some respect, but you knew the whole time what you were doing wasn't making it better-"

Except they did.

"SHUT UP!"

"You're bigger. You've always been bigger, so stop fighting it!"

"What do you know?" He finally let go and when he did, she fell back from him as if he wounded her. "You don't even know me!"

"I know enough, and I want to know more. Just let me."

"I kill people!" when her hands touched the bricks behind her they crumbled and gave way, collapsing a fire escape and making it slump clear off the building. She gave it a furious expression and then directed it to Kid Flash. "I destroy everything. I can't -"

"Who are you convincing, me or you?"

Didn't he get it? She wanted to go with him, she wanted to stop serving assholes drinks for minimum wage and four ass squeezes a night but she didn't belong. She didn't fit. She wasn't a hero, super powers didn't make you a hero. Helping out a single time against bad people didn't make her a hero. If she walked into a police station these days, she'd be arrested and locked up just as well when she had a H.I.V.E 5 communicator. A year wasn't enough to fix her mistakes, a life time wouldn't be enough because bad luck followed her.

"I'm a bad person."

"You're a lost person."

"Stop it...Kid Flash, just stop."

"Come with me."

He held out his hand, mirroring the position so long ago.

Had she really not taken a single step from that moment to this?

The frustration was overwhelming, ready to burn out of her skin. She felt the probabilities all around her, humming underneath her flesh. The parked cars to her side that only needed a push for the doors to be unlocked, the tires blown out. The barred windows of the surrounding buildings who were begging to crumble due to stress fractures and shoddy glass. The only thing she couldn't foresee was him.

His eyes were so wide, so blue

"Trust me."

This was bound to be bad luck, he'd probably be dead in a month.

She was tired of fighting. Tired of being unsure.

"If you think I'm going to start fucking you, you're out of your mind."

Jinx pushed his hand away, but also stepped beside him. The permanent blush on her face deepened a little at his goofy, soppy grin.

"I'll settle for the odd making out session."

"Like that's bound to happen-"

He grabbed her by her jacket and drew her into him, tipping her chin to meet him with his free hand. All she could taste was grape flavored jolly ranchers as he kissed her so soundly it about knocked her off her feet.

"I have all the time in the world," he said softly, forehead to forehead. She stared in amazement. "but even I get tired of waiting."


End file.
